Category: News

Kv7 channels are central to the control of excitation in the heart and brain, and harbor disease mutations associated with arrhythmias, epilepsy, and deafness. The calcium sensor protein calmodulin controls the action of Kv7 channels and provides a key link between channel activity and cellular signaling pathways. In this video, members from the Minor Lab describe their recent studies published in Neuron that uncover a universal mechanism by which calmodulin controls Kv7 channels through an Apo/CaM clamp and a C-lobe-driven switch mechanism.

“I am writing to let you know that our esteemed colleague, Pui Kwok, will be assuming the directorship of the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at the Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan, effective October 1. This is a tremendous honor, but also a great new opportunity for Pui to help build a large precision medicine program in Taiwan . . . he will maintain his lab and his significant roles in the IHG, namely as Director of the Genomics Core Facility, member of the Executive Committee, and co-Director of the Genomic Medicine Initiative. He will continue as co-PI on both the NBSeq study and the newly funded CSER2 program. He will also maintain roles within the CVRI and Department of Dermatology.
With his focus on precision medicine in Taiwan, we anticipate that there may be many opportunities for new collaborations between scientists there and here. . .
Let us all congratulate Pui on this recognition, and on the exciting opportunity ahead for him to build a new program to advance precision medicine and human genetics in Asia.”

Congratulatory message excerpts from Neil Risch, Ph.D., Director of the Institute of Human Genetics at UCSF.

As is being announced today at Novartis, Shaun Coughlin, MD, PhD, will be joining the biotech giant to become Global Head of Cardiovascular and Metabolism at Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He will start his new position on November 1.

We are sad to lose one of our most respected leaders, yet profoundly grateful for his decades of service and immeasurable contributions to our mission. Dr. Coughlin is an outstanding example of the personal qualities that collectively have propelled UCSF to the top: a relentless drive to push the boundaries of our knowledge, a deep commitment to improve health for our patients, and steadfast devotion in teaching and mentoring the next generation of physician-scientists.

Dr. Coughlin received undergraduate and graduate training at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MD from Harvard Medical School. After an internal medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, he joined UCSF for a cardiology fellowship and postdoc in 1984. He became a faculty member here in 1986, director of the Cardiovascular Research Institute at UCSF in 1997, and Distinguished Professor of Cardiovascular Biology and Medicine in 2006.

His research discoveries revealed a mechanism by which proteases regulate cellular behaviors including a key mechanism that controls blood platelet activation and clot formation. This work led to a new medical therapy for preventing heart attacks and strokes and has been honored by the American Heart Association’s Basic Science Award in 2003 and its Research Achievement Award in 2014. Among his numerous other awards are the Bristol-Myers Squibb Cardiovascular Research Award and the Distinguished Career Award from the International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis.

He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

CVRI Professor and Associate Director Brian Black, PhD, will be serving as interim director. A national search for a permanent new director will be initiated soon.

Shaun Coughlin’s impact on our institution has been invaluable. Please join me in thanking him for his service and wishing him the very best for his new career.

The Academy membership encompasses over 4,600 Fellows and 600 Foreign Honorary Members and reflects the full range of disciplines and professions: mathematics, the physical and biological sciences, medicine, the social sciences and humanities, business, government, public affairs, and the arts. Among the Academy’s Fellows are more than 250 Nobel laureates and 60 Pulitzer Prize winners.

The Distinguished Service Award recognizes alumni who have brought honor and distinction to the Division of the Biological Sciences and to the University of Chicago by demonstrating outstanding leadership in-and making significant contributions to-the biological sciences or medicine through research, clinical care, health service administration, public and professional service, or civic duties. The Distinguished Service Award for Early Achievement requirements includes the criteria above and alumni who graduated within the past fifteen years are eligible.

The Association of American Physicians is a nonprofit, professional organization founded in 1885 by seven physicians, including Dr. William Osler, for “the advancement of scientific and practical medicine.” Now the Association is composed of over 1300 active members and approximately 600 emeritus and honorary members from the United States, Canada and other countries. The goals of its members include the pursuit of medical knowledge, and the advancement through experimentation and discovery of basic and clinical science and their application to clinical medicine. Each year, individuals having attained excellence in achieving these goals, are recognized by nomination for membership by the Council of the Association. Their election gives them the opportunity to share their scientific discoveries and contributions with their colleagues at the annual meeting.

Five UC San Francisco faculty members have been elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) after a highly competitive nomination process.

The ASCI, which is one of the oldest medical honor societies in the United States, received 160 membership nominations for 2016 and recommended 74 nominees for election.

The five faculty members elected are:
Pamela M. Ling, MD, MPH, a professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, studies tobacco industry marketing strategies targeting young adults, women, and other high-risk population, and new smokeless and novel tobacco product marketing strategies the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education.

Five UC San Francisco faculty members have been elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) after a highly competitive nomination process.

The ASCI, which is one of the oldest medical honor societies in the United States, received 160 membership nominations for 2016 and recommended 74 nominees for election.

The five faculty members elected are:

Kamran Atabai, MD, an investigator in the Cardiovascular Research Institute at UCSF, where his research interests include apoptotic cell and collagen clearance in health and disease. The work of his laboratory includes examining the role of the extracellular matrix in regulating metabolism, tissue remodeling and smooth muscle function as these processes relate to cardiovascular disease.

The 2015 Stein and Moore Award recipient is Dr. William DeGrado (University of California, San Francisco). Dr. DeGrado’s bold body of work spanning decades has taught us that proteins can be rationally designed in a staged modular manner based on simple chemical and conformational principles, and that both de novo and biologically-inspired functional elements can also be installed. His work has also taught us the pitfalls in rational design, and has provided a battery of biophysical and biochemical methods that can be powerfully applied to validate and understand the structure of these designs. His pioneering work has shown that simple chemical principles can be rationally applied to highly complex systems to both understand them and create new materials and potential therapeutics. His impact on the field of protein science can hardly be overestimated.

Ajay Chawla, MD, PhD – Richard E. Weitzman Outstanding Early Career Investigator Award. This annual award recognizes an exceptionally promising young clinical or basic investigator. Chawla’s work has established general principles by which innate immunity extends the homeostatic capacity of tissues, which has deepened the understanding of metabolic diseases. Over the last decade, Chawla’s contributions have spanned the areas of physiological, regenerative, and circadian homeostasis. Chawla was first to demonstrate that in response to cold temperature, catecholamine hormones made in the adrenal glands can stimulate the browning of white fat tissue so the tissue burns more energy, a finding that may have value in managing obesity. Chawla is an Associate Professor of Physiology and Medicine at the Cardiovascular Research Institute of the University of California San Francisco.

Sam Hawgood, MBBS, was confirmed Thursday morning as UC San Francisco’s 10th chancellor in a unanimous vote by the UC Board of Regents.

Hawgood, 61, whom University of California President Janet Napolitano tapped for the position July 9 after an international search for a leader for the $4.2 billion health sciences campus, has served as interim chancellor since April 1, when he succeeded Susan Desmond-Hellmann, MD, MPH.